Quick reminder: Please do not share your private keys with any website, individual, or business
CryptoKitties the game will NEVER ask for your private key or seed words
In light of the recent Etherdelta DNS hack we decided it would be a good time to highlight the importance of security for all of our players. We also want to make a brief announcement on an isolated incident that is currently being handled. This incident was related to the various phishing websites that copied a similar domain name or pretended to be a community tool for CryptoKitties. The phishing website would then asked the user to input their private key in order to play the game or access the tool.
We’re deeply disappointed to find out what has happened. Someone has fraudulently obtained the Metamask wallet addresses and private keys of some of our users, and used that information to steal their money. This is wire fraud, and it’s a serious crime. The CryptoKitties team is working to acquire all available evidence about the perpetrator, to help the authorities with their investigations.
While we cannot prevent this type of criminal activity from happening — we do not have visibility into or control over any transactions that users engage in on the Ethereum network or via their Metamask wallet — we want to be as proactive as possible to help users understand best practices when it comes to managing their cryptocurrency.
The first lesson we can share is: never, under any circumstances, should you share your Metamask wallet or private keys with any person or software that you do not intend to take control of all of your assets. Your Metamask wallet and other similar wallets exist to manage your cryptocurrency, so you may need to provide your private keys to those wallets in order to manage and use them. Other than your wallets, though, there are virtually no other situations in which you should share your private keys with anyone. Anyone who asks for your private keys in any other context is probably trying to steal from you. Don’t let them.
The image below is an example of your private key which you absolutely should NOT share.
Your public key looks something like this 0x5D651032c8Bc6384d1A077A4aaaDc939c4BD1d7e and is found by clicking on “copy address to clipboard” in the screenshot above.
If you were a victim of this most recent attack, we want to hear from you. Please reach out to us at meow@cryptokitties.co, so that we can collect your information and provide it to the relevant authorities to help them with their investigations.
